Have you got experience with election cases? Will you uphold voting laws? In Fairfax County, Virginia, the Democrats still don’t want you on the electoral board.
What should have been a simple approval of each party’s pick for membership on a county electoral board was turned into a politicized process with personal vendettas at play. Democrats targeted experienced election attorney and frequent PJ Media contributor Hans von Spakovsky, unfairly keeping him from returning to a post.
Von Spakovsky is a former presidentially appointed commissioner of the Federal Election Commission. Prior to that, he litigated election cases as an attorney in the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Obviously, an election board would benefit from someone who knows the ins and outs of election law. Yet Cesar del Aguila, chairman of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, told the Washington Post in October of 2012:
I’ve read about his background. I’m concerned why and how he ended up in Fairfax County in his role.
Del Aguila and the Fairfax County Democratic Committee then crafted an outrageous complaint about von Spakovsky’s “decided bias.”
If such bias were at play, it should have had a practical effect on the Board’s decisions. However, of the 224 votes taken by the Fairfax County Electoral Board since the newest Democratic member joined the board in 2011, 221 of them were unanimous.
That means that for almost all decisions of the board, Hans von Spakovsky voted with the person the Democrats appointed — Seth Stark.
Of the three decisions where there was disagreement, von Spakovsky was not the lone dissenter. Board Secretary Carol Ann Coryell voted with him each time.
Further, one of those three votes saw von Spakovsky voting in defense of removing bias from the Fairfax County elections. He voted for the removal of materials from the voting locations placed by any private advocacy organization, such as the League of Women Voters, which takes positions on a myriad of political issues including gun control and abortion. Von Spakovsky — demonstrating an awareness of current election litigation — pointed out that the League was a litigant in a pending case regarding voter identification laws. Voter ID is an issue the Virginia legislature was considering; Hans thought it reasonable that Virginia polling places not be venues for advocacy by any private group.
Ironically, the bias and extreme partisanship in Fairfax County that von Spakovsky is accused of inciting have demonstrably come from the Democrats. Last November, the Fairfax County Democrats sued von Spakovsky and other Virginia election officials in an unsuccessful attempt to allow partisan poll watchers to talk to voters in polling places.
The Court denied the Democrats’ request — a partisan ploy that dragged officials to the courts — just days before Election Day. If the Democrats had succeeded, electioneering and intimidation could have been easily committed by partisans at the polls.
Instead of removing bias and partisanship from elections, Democrats have done and continue to do just the opposite.
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